Limbo
by Rosa Seravo
Summary: Set in late Season 4, Riley encounters Faith after


LIMBO (Riley/Faith)  
  
By Rosa Seravo  
  
Fanfiction, dedicated to The Reverand Darma Roadkill  
  
Spoilers: Season 4  
  
Summary: Faith confronts Riley in an alley at The Bronze  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Disclaimers: The characters and world contained in this fanfiction are the  
property not of myself but of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, The Warner Brothers  
Network and Fox Network.   
  
  
LIMBO  
  
  
Riley sat at a table in the Bronze, nursing a stout. Buffy was patrolling and Riley found himself alone and restless.  
  
He really didn't have any friends anymore, he mused. Forrest despised him. Graham sympathized but didn't have the courage to stand up to the rest of the commandoes. Buffy's friends didn't trust him. Sometimes he felt it might be nice to be pals with Xander, but the latter resisted attempts at friendship. Riley was beginning to suspect some jealousy on Xander's part. Who could blame him. He was stuck with that henpecking ex-demon, Anya, while Riley had Buffy.  
  
  
Or did he?  
  
  
"Come on, Rile," he thought. "Don't think like that. Buffy loves you and you love her. Be happy with what the two of you have." He smiled to himself and straightened his shoulders. He felt better. Thinking positive always did that for him. And the stout didn't hurt.  
  
A short but athletic-looking girl was making her way toward him in the din of the crowd. She looked right at him and nodded, as though she recognized him. Riley wondered at this; he had never seen her before. She approached his table.  
  
  
  
"Hey. Mind if I take a seat?" she asked.  
  
  
Riley smiled at her informally. "It's a free table," he said gayly. The girl sat down.  
  
  
"You think you don't know me," she said.  
  
  
"I don't remember us meeting. If we did, I apologize."  
  
  
"I'm Faith," she said.  
  
  
The smile died as Riley's body became rigid. He looked in her eyes and this time, he recognized her. The sadness. The madness. The penetrating force. Riley's breath came tight. He wanted to yell and he wanted to cry at the same time. This woman had raped him, sure as if she had slipped rufis into his drink and done him while unconscious. She had robbed of choice and dignity. She had damaged, perhaps irreperably, his relationship with the girl he loved. He wanted to kill her.  
  
  
"Faith," he said, his voice low and trembling with menace, "I have never struck a woman in my life..." he stopped himself as he remembered Willow, that day when he was crazy and jonesing. But that was a shove, not a smack. He decided he was still in the realm of honesty, and continued. "I do not intend to start with you. I suggest you leave now, and never show me your face again."  
  
Faith twisted her lips painfully. She got up from the table and let her eyes linger on him for a moment. Then she turned and walked away, her trademark swagger failing her. She had a tatoo on her right arm. Riley shuddered. A tatoo.  
  
Riley sat frozen at the table, downing his stout more quickly now, wanting the balm of the alcohol to sooth his screaming nerves. Faith. Faith. The killer, the predator, the evil one. The one whose shadow still lay between him and his Buffy, his beautiful golden girl who no longer saw him as The Nice Guy and now saw him as The Cheater. She'd never say so, never accuse him. But it was there, in her eyes. It was not rational. But the psych major knew that people could not always think and act rationally, despite their best intentions.  
  
His beer done, another one ordered and vanquished, Riley got up from the table at last and ventured outside. The cool night air blew in his face. Faith, the evil one. Faith.   
  
  
"Riley." There it was again, her gravelly Boston accent. He stopped in his tracks and turned his head to the left and there she was again, petite and lethal, dark eyes penetrating, searching searching... "I need to talk to you."  
  
Riley desperately wanted to tell her to screw off. Even more, he wanted to break her head against the wall of The Bronze but a lifetime of upbringing and personal values won. "No," he said. He walked on. Faith put a tiny hand on his large, muscular forearm. Her hand was like iron.  
  
"Come on," she said. "I won't hurt you." She pulled him after her, Riley unable to resist without using force, force that probably would have been useless against her mix of Slayer strength and personal ruthlessness. She led him down the alley to a lonely, quiet spot. His back was against the wall. His heart was pounding with fear and anger. She crossed her arms and regarded him quietly, sadly.  
  
"I just need to tell you something, that's all. Just one thing, and then I'm going." She shut her eyes a moment and breathed deep, as if searching for just the right thing, the exquisite phrase that would hit its mark. She opened her eyes again.   
  
"I'm sorry about what I did to you. I had sex with you without your consent. You didn't deserve that, and I was wrong."  
  
Riley scoffed. "Damn straight. Are you going to tell me something I don't already know?"  
  
"You don't already know that I know how it feels. That's why I'm sorry about what I did. It happened to me...more than once. And it wasn't as nice, believe me."   
  
So Faith was a rape victim. Was that supposed to make it okay, make him sorry for her? A victim herself, she knew what it was to have your most personal rights stripped away from you and live with that for the rest of your life. It made what she did all the more vile, unforgivable. Still, regarding her tiny body, knowing she had not always been a Slayer, he felt the first twinges of pity. Good old Riley, he thought, always the softie.  
  
"And the other thing is..."  
  
"You said you just wanted to tell me one thing."  
  
"Okay, there is one other thing, all right. Just..." Faith put her hands up as if to silence him. He waited. The moonlight was lighting her face and creating a blueish reflection in her black hair. She was like a dark angel, he thought, perhaps an angel of death come for him. He didn't want to die here, now, and not at her hands. Not that.  
  
"I love you," she said.  
  
Riley was speechless.  
  
"I've never said that to anyone before. Except my mom, when I was a little girl." Faith's face convulsed as if tears were going to come, but her eyes remained dry, clear, resistant to emotion. "I'm not asking you to love me back. I just love you, that's all. And if you ever need anything...you're ever in trouble...I'll help you if you want. No strings."  
  
"I'm with Buffy," Riley said between clenched teeth. It probably wasn't a smart thing to say, but he said it anyway. It gave him a sense of power, of self. Faith rolled her eyes a little and smiled.  
  
"Yeah, I know. I know you love her a lot. I don't blame you because I used to." Riley looked confused. "I'm a - a switch-hitter. You know. AC/DC. But Buffy is straight as they come so... it was pretty hopeless. Besides, she loved Angel."  
  
Angel. That name again. Riley was beginning to suspect that name had been the source of his difficulties with Buffy all along. From the moment they met, Angel's shadow had stood between them, and now it had been joined by Faith's.  
  
"Just in case you ever think that Buffy doesn't just love you...or something, try not to feel too bad. You can always know there's one girl...one crazy girl (she laughed slightly at this) who loves just you. With me, you don't play second fiddle to anyone. You're worth a million of Angel and Buffy put together. You know? So...that's it really. I won't take up any more of your time." She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek, her lips like lightening against his skin. And then she was gone.  
  
******************  
  
Sometimes, after that, when Riley made love to Buffy or took her to dinner and he looked in her eyes and saw Angel between them, when that pain of never being enough attacked his insides and stung his heart, he would think of Faith, the fallen Slayer. He would remember that she had confessed that he alone laid claim to her heart...and he would remember that when he had made love to her that fateful night in February, she had gazed at him with pure love and joy, meant only for him, that love in her eyes the reason he had at last found the courage to declare his love for Buffy. He would never say those words to Buffy now, because he knew it was only a matter of time before heart and soul would win out over mind and will and she would leave him. But Faith would always be there, a dark and beautiful shadow in an alley, loving only him.  
  
And the pain in his insides and in his heart would ease, and he would look at Buffy across the table or across the pillow and smile into her eyes, because everything was all right for now.  
  
  
  
  



End file.
